Stamps of Approval

By

Ralph Gardner Jr.

Feb. 29, 2012 8:47 p.m. ET

The arrival of a thank-you note, or any note at all on engraved stationery in the email age, seems cause for celebration and reason for the sender to rise exponentially in your estimation. Nonetheless, I was startled when news arrived of collaboration between Connor, a bespoke stationer and engraver, and Manolo Blahnik, that master of high-end shoe design. Actually, the collaboration is between Connor and Lane Crawford, a Hong Kong luxury retailer, celebrating Blahnik's 40th anniversary.

ENLARGE

Henri Richter-Werner, above, at the Connor engraved-stationery boutique on the ninth floor of Barney's.
Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

"Mr. Blahnik sent me the illustration and then I figured out with our engraver in Paris how to engrave it in two colors," explained Henri Richter-Werner, Connor's creative director. "We did the tablets and the cards, and limited edition prints."

The stationery features a pair of the shoe god's lacy red stilettos, the accompanying envelope lined with matching red and white-stripped paper. I'm probably not the right person to write about this, because I don't pretend to understand women's shoe fetish, let alone what might possess anyone to spend $110 for a box of 10 cards with matching envelopes.

And even if I had that discretionary cash sitting around, I doubt I'd have the stomach to blow it on designer pads and paper. I tend to clutch when I'm writing thank-you notes and start over repeatedly. To have to discard several slips of 4-ply stock before I finally get the sentiment right, each one setting me back $11, could be grounds for self-loathing.

Mr. Richter-Werner might have been able to shed light on what would move someone to spend that amount on stationery, especially stationery depicting shoes, but I was too chicken to ask. He seemed so pleased with the results.

"$85 for a box of 12 cards and 12 envelopes: you're not far off from a Hallmark card," he contended. He wasn't referring to the Manolos any more but to other note cards that he sells at his ninth-floor boutique at Barney's. They're hand-stamped with things like snakes, scarab beetles, green pomegranates and, my personal favorite, a golden rhino. "Hallmark is anywhere from $5 to $7, plus you get a handmade Italian linen box with it. We constantly think we're not priced high enough."

Mr. Richter-Werner drew my attention to Connor's logo, so subtle it was easy to overlook, indeed almost impossible to see at all. He described it affectionately as "ultra snob." It's a tiny raised circle, absent any attention-getting color. I asked what it symbolized.

"It's basically a whole" (that's how I scribbled it down, but he probably meant hole) "and a punctuation mark. The hole means eternity. Something endless…and that ends a sentence. It's the Connor 'swoosh.'"

I explained that I bridled at advertising anybody's brand—whether on my stationery, socks, or T-shirts (for example, Ralph Lauren's annoyingly ubiquitous polo pony) and doubted I'd purchase stationery bearing a pair of shoes, even if they were Manolos.

Mr. Richter-Werner couldn't have agreed more. "That's why the hole is blind embossed," he explained. "It's not yelling at you, 'Here I am.'"

He described the stilettos less as free product placement for Mr. Blahnik, with the purchaser as unwitting, or rather witting, accomplice, than as "a depiction of the art form." I decided to move on. He did beautiful work, after all, and there were other dies and engravings to admire. He started showing me examples of his work, compared to which the Manolos paled in terms of both price and the gentle light they shone on the importance of status symbols in human culture, and the ever-widening gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us.

He pulled out gorgeous stationery he did for Vito Schnabel, an art dealer and the son of painter Julian Schnabel; Bee Shaffer, daughter of Anna Wintour; and actress Blake Lively—hers a coiled golden snake, its forked tongue spelling out her name in script.

The cost is approximately $15 a card, minimum order 100. "Each bespoke order comes with a pouch for stationary when you travel," Mr. Richter-Werner explained. "It's made in 100% Loro Piana cashmere that you can embroider with your initials."

Turns out that $15 a card is slumming it. He showed me a Russian family's five-color crest that cost $60 for each piece of paper. It was a gift. "What do you give a family that has a yacht, jet, several residences?" the stationer wondered aloud.

There's your answer.

Actually, what you give them are $65 notepads and $18 coasters bearing the likeness of their yacht, as Mr. Richter-Werner's Parisian engraver created for the American owner of one 267-foot ocean-going vessel. He said he wasn't allowed to disclose the name. "I'd get assassinated in three minutes," he joked. At least, I assume he was joking.

He also made matchbooks stamped with the name of a billionairess's Swiss chalet, and is doing a five-color engraving of a recently deceased Shih Tzu for it mourning owner. "The design alone is going to be $5,000 to $6,000," he said.

Mr. Richter-Werner said that his biggest order thus far as been $80,000, that sum purchasing not just pads and paper but also place cards, enclosure cards of the sort you send with flowers, even monogrammed wrapping paper. And, of course, you get to keep the hand-engraved steel die for future use.

As for the rest of us, there's always those $85 ready-to-write cards and envelopes.

The merchant seemed to believe he had something at every price point. "Just like you can go to Hermes in Paris and get an ashtray for $500," Mr. Richter-Werner explained, meaning affordable proof that you shop in the big leagues, so you can buy his over-the-counter stationery. On the opposite end of the scale, you could "order a crocodile Birkin bag for $80,000," he went on, still shopping at Hermes. I assume that would compare to his personalized hand-stamped, hand-engraved, hand-lined, hand-edged images of your pet or boat that whispers, but never swears, money and taste.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.